Experiment

I decided to do a little experiment.. and the result is very disheartening but no less surprising..

FB has a BD reminder function. It will tell you whose BD it is today by listing the BD girl's/boy's name(s) on the top right panel. Unless you specify "Don't show my birthday on my timeline", FB will automatically broadcast your BD to all your friends when your big day comes. I had turned that function off two weeks prior. I wanted to see how many of these FB "friends" of mine will actually remember my BD and the result confirmed my suspicions.

I have 270+ "friends" on FB, but almost 97% of them are old classmates, ex-colleagues and acquaintances whom I have not met much less talked to for months or years, some may have been more than 20 years ago! However, I do keep in touch, in FB sense, with at least a dozen of these friends, usually commenting on photos/statues, share links and other stuffs. Thus I was expecting maybe a handful of BD wishes from them, but alas, I was very much disappointed.. I received just 2.

Am I sad that I received only 2 BD wishes? Kind of, because it showed how fragile interpersonal relationships are and distance does not make the heart grows 'fonder' nor 'closer'. But all is not lost as I also felt relieved. Why? Because now I know who really care enough to actually make the effort to remember my BD, even if there's only 2 of them.

Life is too short to be wasted on those who doesn't matter. I think my BD is easier enough to remember - 2 days before Christmas and usually a day before the Winter Solstice. And if they don't even make the time to remember the most important day of my life, they are not worth more of my time nor effort. Like I said in my previous blog, I can be mean if I want to, but recently I've come to the conclusion that even being a b***h is a waste of my precious time and energy, so I will choose to just ignore or be 'courteous'.

We will always be 'friends' in FB, just not in RL.